Bylaw amendments will include the public

The board voted at its July 13 meeting to work on six bylaws in preparation for a town meeting vote. Amending the zoning bylaw to establish an East Princeton Village District is the No. 1 priority.

The board worked on creating the East Princeton Village Overlay District for the past year, but withdrew it prior to town meeting due to unresolved issues, primarily with the language of the bylaw. When a public hearing was held in April to discuss the proposal, more than 25 people came to the meeting, most from the East Princeton Village area and most were strongly opposed to the proposal.

Residents raised issues related to parking if new businesses were allowed in the village and most said they wanted the area to stay the way it is.

The board suggested member Mark Canfield get back together with residents from the village area that had been involved initially. At the public hearing, the board made it clear they wanted residents to be involved in any future bylaw proposals so that everyone would be comfortable with any changes and several residents signed up to attend meeting discussions.

“We heard from folks they weren’t interested in enabling more business in the area,” said planning board chairman Rick McCowan.

Second on the list is a Worcester Road Village District. At the annual town meeting in May, voters approved spending $2,200 to pay Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission to assist the board exploring a conceptual plan for a Post Office Place Village District.

The board also removed it from the town meeting warrant because of objections from more than 40 residents in the Worcester Road area at a public forum in April. Lack of communication was a common theme addressed by people at the meeting. Confusion about the accuracy of the town zoning map caused additional problems for residents.

After town meeting, board members set up guidelines for future zoning changes that included doing a better job of notifying those affected by proposed changes, getting more people involved in discussions including the select board, better posting of notices, more transparency and frequent communication updates, holding public forums to get information out, and putting names of property owners on maps to make it easier to identify who will be affected.

Board members will discuss ideas for Post Office Place Village District at their next meeting on August 24 and invite residents to attend.

“We’ll discuss what we see as the scope of that district and what we want, then contact CMRPC and get started,” said McCowan.

“There was a lot of emotion and a lot of concern by people at that public forum,” said Worcester Road resident Deborah Cassidy. “People need to be informed.”

“Because so many people were upset, my suggestion is we look at the zoning and the village district on Worcester Road comprehensively, see what makes sense and see what people want,” said McCowan.

Cassidy said the previous proposal was very confusing. “We all need to know where we stand.”

“The new assessors’ maps that came out were wrong,” said McCowan. “As a result some residents who thought they were in a business district aren’t.” He said the maps would be corrected.

“Our goal is when we next have something to go before town meeting we would like to have all the people involved and being in support of it,” said board member John Mirick.

In addition to the village district proposals, the board agreed to explore; amending the bylaw to allow conversions of older single-family homes to multi-family dwellings, additions to the sign bylaw, look at storm water management, and underground utility lines with new building permits.

All were placed on the back burner while the board concentrates on the six bylaw amendments considered priorities.

The board also accepted new language for four places in the bylaws replacing the wording “street line” with the “street right of way line” when referring to the property line adjacent to the street. Building inspector John Wilson encountered issues with owners who have interpreted “street line” to mean the edge of the pavement rather than the edge of their lot.

That zoning amendment will be placed on the next town meeting warrant.